The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has announced that the 2024 African Nations Championship (CHAN) will be postponed from February to August. CAF released a statement confirming the news on Tuesday, also stating that the draw will still be carried out on Wednesday in Nairobi at 20:00 local time (17:00 GMT).
Speculation was running rampant in African football media that preparations were not complete for the competition which was originally set to kick off on February 1. East African nations Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya were the selected co-hosts but as initially reported on Pan-Africa Football, Kenya drew unwanted attention for stadium and other organizational issues indicating that the nation was not ready to fulfill its co-host duties.
After a series of visits to each of the co-hosts over the last month, Confederation of African Football (CAF) president Patrice Motsepe declared each nation ready for the competition. Motsepe's visits came after Pan-Africa Football reported a source saying that Kenya's two venues, the Kasarani Stadium and Nyayo Stadium were far from ready as of the beginning of December.
"Kenya was not ready, the latest inspection shows Nyayo Stadium is only 10% complete, while Kasarani Stadium is 30% ready." Our report indicated that the situation was so dire that CAF had already told Kenyan organizers that they planned to transfer Kenya's co-hosting duties to Rwanda and had given a deadline for the nation's preparations to be complete by the new year. The Kenyan government, and subsequently Motsepe after his assessment visits, denied the rumors and publicly indicated that preparations were going as planned.
Another worrying factor had been the list of teams qualified for the finals. As of Tuesday, one day before the scheduled tournament draw, two of the nineteen qualified teams had yet to be confirmed following withdrawals by North African nations Libya and Tunisia. In its announcements following the completion of the qualification tournament, CAF continued to say these spots would be determined but no further explanation or announcement was given.
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